Idea #8: Now is a great time to invest in better understanding your customers.

This is the eighth in a series of articles examining ways to thrive, not just survive, in 2009.

In a recent poll of 450-plus marketers globally, The CMO Council found that only 6% of marketers claim to have an excellent understanding of their customers when it comes to demographic, behavioral, psychographic and transactional data. (Source: Business Gain from How You Retain, CMO Council with CSC, IBM and Dun & Bradstreet, April 2008.)

Only 6% of marketers claim to have an excellent understanding of their customers

That’s why our eighth and final suggestion as to where marketers should focus efforts to thrive, not just survive, in the year ahead is customer insight. Consider this recent blog entry from the talented team at Sirius Decisions:

“For fans of the movie ‘Moonstruck,’ you may recall a scene where Cher’s father (the rich plumber) convinces a reluctant couple to spend lots of money on copper pipes by telling them ‘it costs money because it saves money.’ I don’t know about plumbing, but the argument holds for customer research: it’s tempting to cut in lean times, but that’s a mistake. What you need is better customer research, and to use what you learn from it. Now more than ever it’s essential to know what your customers think of you and what their needs are so you remain their preferred choice and they refer you to others.”

Getting to know customers better is something we feel passionately about here at Quarry.
So much so, our company mantra is: Think and feel like the customer, always anticipate, and have fun!^TM And we call the outcome Customer iQ^®: a profound understanding of the feelings, perceptions and motivations that drive your customers’ relationships with your brand and category.

Whether it’s unearthing your key buyer, influencer and user personas with ethnographic research, discovering how customers, buying cycles and information needs are evolving with in-depth interviews, learning why you did win customers and lost “would-have-been” customers’ trust with win-loss analysis, seeing what people see and don’t see in your marketing with eye tracking, or regularly taking the pulse of your target audience with panel research (like we do with Rural Roots, Quarry’s network of over 100 rural residents throughout North America), there is a wealth of research tools at your disposal to help you understand your customers better in 2009.

That brings us to the end this eight-part series examining where marketers should focus to thrive, not just survive, in the year ahead. Hope you found these ideas valuable.
Did you miss Idea #7? It’s about changing how marketing is measured.